Canada’s country music scene is hotter than ever and — thanks to artists like Dallas Smith, Tim Hicks and Brett Kissel — Canadian country music is cool, too.
Today’s country music has found a broad audience from coast to coast.
“I heard [Aerosmith frontman] Steven Tyler say that country is the new rock ’n’ roll,” said Tim Hicks, whose third album Shake These Walls was released in September.
Hicks said he believes people crave “music that’s singable [and] music that’s played with real instruments.”
He explained: “It’s still about the song, good singing, good playing and that’s what attracts me to it. Harmonies, vocals, great guitar playing — that’s what I want to hear when I turn on the radio.”
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Hicks said he counts himself lucky to be part of the industry right now.
“The scene in Canada has never been more competitive and the bar is raised so high in terms of the quality of workmanship,” he explained. “It keeps everybody on their toes and makes for an exciting time.”
Dallas Smith agrees.
“The production has really been stepped up,” he said. “Everybody’s kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We need to take this to another level.’”
Smith, who released his third album Side Effects in September, said he and producer Joey Moi deserve some credit for the new sound of Canadian country music.
“We really aimed at how the American production was sounding,” he explained. “We didn’t really look at what was going on in Canadian country. We looked at the bar as this is what Blake [Shelton] is doing, let’s try to match this production and match the product.”
Smith echoes Hicks’ feeling that the industry is more competitive than ever.
“You look back at moments with Terri [Clark] and Shania [Twain] and Paul [Brandt] — where they were eating up every bit of Cancon there was,” he recalled. “But now there’s such a competition for those spots. It’s such a great thing.”
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Brett Kissel, who was named Male Artist of the Year at this year’s CCMA awards, described Hicks and Smith — as well as Dean Brody — as “great entertainers” who have widened the appeal of country music.
“Back in the day country music was its own box. Pop was its own box. And rock was its own thing,” said Kissel. “Now country music may be the only genre that is accepting of all these different things. So country music has spread into the fanbase of all these different genres to make it the most recognizable genre in Canada.”
Kissel noted that “some of the biggest radio stations” in cities like Toronto and Vancouver are country stations. “And that’s thanks to guys like Tim who puts on an incredible show and have great songs on the radio. It’s thanks to guys like Dean who can tear your heart out with a great country song like ‘Trail in Life’ and then rock down with ‘Bring Down the House.’”
Smith said it’s time country fans south of the border got a better taste of what Canadians are lapping up.
“Hopefully some more American labels and the American country community will start paying attention to what we’re doing up here now,” he said.
“We’re starting to turn heads and I hope that continues.”
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